Well, I dunno, I guess if I were Valve/EA I would've just told Sony sorry, it's not ready yet. And leave it at that. Let them terminate the contract if they so desire...obviously Sony wanted OB, right? So, it's probably a good bet, that while not happy about it, Sony would've just aquiesced and waited...what more option would they have had, other than stealing the copy illegally which would most likely not happen lol.

If they cancelled it they would have had to pay Sony back likely around 5 times what Sony paid of up front money. I don't see EA doing that do you? They legally were not in a position to say no or face having to pay Sony a large sum of money AND lose the deal.

Sony was obviously seriously considering counting their losses and enacting that clause of the contract. That forced EA to push Valve to release.